Bjartur’s sheep are the central symbol of his heroic but tragically flawed pursuit of absolute independence. For Bjartur, owning sheep free of debt is the ultimate measure of a man’s freedom, an ideology he clings to with religious fervor. His worldview is built on the traditional ideal of the shepherd’s life, as he explains to his dog, “He who keeps his sheep alive through the winter lives in a palace” (13). The recurrent conversations among the farmers about the struggles of sheep-farming ground the symbol in the harsh reality of life on the land, where survival is counted in healthy livestock. The symbolic meaning of the sheep as a pure, rugged embodiment of Bjartur’s self-reliance is sharpened by contrast with the cow, Bukolla, which represents domesticity, maternal comfort, and a form of community dependence that Bjartur rejects as weakness. While his family continually starves without a dairy source, he prioritizes his idealized view of his sheep over the lived realities of life. His relentless focus on the flock’s welfare over his family’s is shown to be a folly, resulting in his family’s unhappiness, starvation, and death. The sheep become the physical manifestation of his abstract principles, showing that he will sacrifice human connection and compassion for their sake.

The symbol of the sheep therefore helps to illuminate the devastating consequences of Bjartur’s obsession with a traditional view of “independence” in the face of a changing world, supporting the theme of The Self-Defeating Nature of Absolute Independence. Ultimately, Bjartur’s 30-year war for self-reliance, projected onto his single-minded obsession with his sheep, ends in failure. By refusing to change his ideas or learn from experience, he loses his farm to debts, revealing the dangers of independence when founded on a lack of self-awareness or humility.